This invention relates to antibiotics of the glycopeptide class. In particular, it relates to antibiotic substances obtained with the glycopeptide antibiotic actaplanin, also know as A4696.
Antibiotic A4696 is described by Hamill et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,952,095, and factors A and "B" thereof are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,115,552. Further, previously unisolated and unrecognized A4696 factors are described by Debono et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,322,406. Debono, U.S. Pat. No. 4,322,346 also describes the pseudo-aglycone obtained by the complete acid hydrolysis of actaplanin.
The actaplanin antibiotics in addition to their therapeutic usefulness as antibiotics also improve feed efficiency in ruminants, U.S. Pat. No. 3,928,571, as well as swine and poultry, U.S. Pat. No. 4,064,233.
This invention provides hitherto unidentified actaplanin compositions obtained by the partial aqueous acidic hydrolysis of the known actaplanins. The structures of the known actaplanins have been determined and a study of the profile of the hydrolysis products of the known actaplanins under incomplete acid hydrolysis conditions has led to the discovery and structural identification of the new actaplanins described herein.